


turned my head inside out

by brophigenia



Series: Pynch Week 2018 [8]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Carnival, Cotton Candy, Day 8: Free Choice, Ferris Wheel, Frottage, Kissing, M/M, Pynch Week, Pynch Week 2018, only a hint of angst, porn and fluff, ridiculously self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 05:33:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15503418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brophigenia/pseuds/brophigenia
Summary: Gansey is, predictably, the one to suggest it. This is unsurprising, because Gansey gets giddy over the same kind of shit that fourteen year old girls from Nebraska get giddy over, including but not limited to picnics, the soundtrack ofOklahoma!,and any sort of carnival, state fair, orhoedown.Ronan has a running bet that Gansey will run off to join the rodeo before he’s forty five; Adam is almost certain this will not happen, if only because Gansey does not reallygetanimals, especially large ones.(The fucking carnival is in town and it is DATE NIGHT. Porn ensues.)





	turned my head inside out

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Glitterghost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glitterghost/gifts).



> Praise to glitterghost for giving me this ACE idea. What a good pal you are. 
> 
> Title from Quesadilla by Walk the Moon.

Gansey is, predictably, the one to suggest it. This is unsurprising, because Gansey gets giddy over the same kind of shit that fourteen year old girls from Nebraska get giddy over, including but not limited to picnics, the soundtrack of  _ Oklahoma!,  _ and any sort of carnival, state fair, or  _ hoedown. _ Ronan has a running bet that Gansey will run off to join the rodeo before he’s forty five; Adam is almost certain this will not happen, if only because Gansey does not really  _ get  _ animals, especially large ones. 

Blue shrugs and says  _ yeah sure  _ in a way that makes it clear she’s trying to be cool but is secretly thrilling inside at the idea. Henry sends a string of incomprehensible emojis that Adam takes to mean  _ yes.  _

Ronan… well. Ronan makes fun of the concept relentlessly, and then talks about  _ Oklahoma!  _ again, seemingly traumatized by the  _ one time  _ that Gansey ‘made’ him watch it, and finally when Adam says it’s alright, they don’t  _ have _ to go to the carnival, looks at him like he’s exceedingly slow. Or perhaps concussed. 

“Of course we’re fucking going, Parrish. Have you not been listening to a word I’ve said?” And Adam hides his smile behind his hand, turning his head, so that Ronan won’t get any ideas about defensiveness. 

Ronan’s idea of  _ summer carnival wear  _ consists of tight black jeans, shitkicker boots, and a black tank top. In short, Ronan’s usual casual wear. And formalwear. And, sometimes, sleepwear. 

Ronan is very fond of black jeans and shirts. 

He looks  _ good, _ though, when Adam arrives at the Barns in the Hondayota to meet the rest of the crew. He’s wearing his usual but he looks  _ sharper,  _ somehow. Striking. Handsome. Adam’s stomach gets a little fizzy, looking at him. He’s always so surprised that he gets to have this. Have  _ Ronan.  _

“Hey,” he murmurs, and brushes a kiss to Ronan’s lips. Then he hums a little, wondering. “Taste good,” he comments, licking his own lips to get at the sticky strawberry stuff he’d picked up in the kiss. 

Ronan flushes a little, high on his cheeks. “The Maggot made me try some shit on.” He mutters. “Don’t make it a Thing.” Adam twines their fingers together, rubs his thumb over the back of Ronan’s hand. 

“You look good.” Ronan snorts, but Adam goes on, persistent. Still quiet. “You look  _ hot.”  _ And he does, of course he does, but Adam knows Ronan doesn’t really think about himself like that very often. Doesn’t try to be this ridiculous smokeshow of a boy, despite all evidence to the contrary. 

“C’mon Parrish. Gonna take more than sweet talk to get into my skirt. Fuckin’ romance me at the carnival.” It’s full of sarcasm, but Ronan’s tone has a thready core of honesty that makes Adam’s chest feel a little tight, makes him feel a little helpless with how much he  _ loves  _ Ronan Lynch. 

“As you wish.” He says out of the corner of mouth, sly, and Ronan groans theatrically. Gansey had definitely ‘made’ Ronan watch  _ the Princess Bride  _ more than just once. 

The carnival is actually not shitty. Adam shouldn’t be surprised, since Gansey had been the one to pick it, but somehow he is. It’s late in the evening,  _ prime carnival time  _ according to Gansey, and everything looks straight out of the indie music videos that Henry sends him via email at 3 am with no subject line or explanation.  _ Aesthetic,  _ like Blue murmurs in quiet awe, bringing up her camera to take a picture. It’s a new habit she’d picked up, right after… everything went down.  _ Capturing memories,  _ she calls it with a fiercely bright baring of teeth that dares anyone to question her further. 

Adam tangles his hand with Ronan’s, because it’s dark and they’re not in Henrietta and it’s  _ Ronan.  _ Ronan mumbles something like  _ fuckin sap  _ but doesn’t let go, either. 

It’s.  _ Good.  _

Gansey drags both Blue and Henry behind him with hands in hands and arms over shoulders, grinning around at all the prime Americana, candy-colored and neon and smelling like soft pretzels. 

“Buy me a soft pretzel, Dick!” Ronan barks, all but trotting to keep up with the trio ahead of them. Adam can’t stop  _ grinning.  _ “S’your fucking fault I’m at this shitshow, anyway.” The casual demand makes Gansey laugh, and the casual expletives make a few mothers glare. Adam stares coolly back; if they don’t want to hear Ronan dropping f-bombs, they better just pack up their minivans and leave. 

Ronan devours two soft pretzels and an entire cirrus cloud of cotton candy, bright pink spun sugar that leaves his fingers sticky and his mouth sweet, when Adam leans down to lick the taste from the roof of his mouth. It makes Ronan shiver, makes him press closer in a way that makes Adam feel ten feet tall, like the hero in some cliched teen romance movie. Like Ronan would rather be here, with him, than anywhere else in the universe. 

“Win me a fuckin’ stuffed bird, Parrish.” Ronan mumbles against his mouth, their teeth clicking together, and Adam smiles, can’t help it. Ronan uses the same casually demanding tone that he’d used earlier on Gansey, making no distinction between Adam’s wallet and Gansey’s. It’s just— it’s  _ good.  _ He still feels like Everest. Impossibly high. 

Duran Duran is blaring out of the milk bottle throw booth; Gansey cheers them on as Adam buys a round of chances, fairly sashaying past with Henry and Blue on his heels, making a beeline for the Shake Shack. 

The man manning the booth gives them a crooked grin. “Gonna win something for your pal, there?” He asks, forking over Adam’s three balls. Ronan cackles. 

“Yeah,  _ pal,  _ gonna win something for me? What a great  _ pal _ you are.” He’s toothsome and thriving off his own daring; with his eyes on fire and his mouth still cotton-candy-pink, Adam has never loved him more. 

The first two balls get hurled with force and accuracy but no result; Adam cottons onto the fact that the game is fixed by the second throw. 

“Little harder than you thought, huh buddy?” The carnie asks him, a litany of good-natured ribbing to cover the fact that the game is a sham. 

There is a large stuffed flamingo on the top shelf.  _ Win me a fuckin’ bird, Parrish,  _ Ronan had said. Adam throws a reckless kind of grin over his shoulder and lets the power in his veins seep out, just a little. 

This time his throw is just as straight and true, and it knocks over every single milk bottle with generous ease. Ronan crows with the victory and the carnie cocks his head curiously at the sprawled bottles. 

The flamingo is probably as big as Blue; Ronan gleefully accepts it from Adam, glowing with mean-spirited satisfaction and an undertone of genuine pleasure. It’s charming. Ronan is a piece of shit, but Adam is so far gone on him it’s not even funny. 

“Holy shit,” Ronan says, breaking off from his musing on what to name his new trophy. Adam follows his gaze to the ring toss booth where Joseph Kavinsky is not beating anyone to a bloody pulp, dealing drugs to minors, or having sex with a coked-up hooker over the boothtop. 

In fact, Kavinsky is  _ pleasantly participating  _ in the game, Prokopenko on standby and loaded down with a strangely high number of stuffed animals. 

“What are they  _ doing?”  _ Adam asks, squinting in unwilling fascination. 

“They’re on a fucking  _ date,  _ Parrish, get a fucking clue.” Ronan hisses back, elbowing him. Somehow, impossibly, he’s  _ right;  _ Adam blinks and realizes that Prokopenko is draped in Kavinsky’s ubiquitous leather jacket, overtop of his  _ own _ leather jacket. He’s a strange, bony pile of leather jackets and stuffed animals with a Slavic jawline. It’s. An interesting visual effect, to be sure. 

Kavinsky wins yet another stuffed animal (a nearly life sized tiger) and whirls to present it to Prokopenko, who does not have enough room in his arms to hold it. Kavinsky  _ stuffs it under his own arm, _ and then lays a horrendously inappropriate kiss onto his bleach-blonde partner in crime. There’s enough tongue that Adam can see it from  _ a hundred feet away.  _ It’s  _ disturbing.  _ Adam is  _ traumatized.  _

“I’m traumatized.” Adam states flatly. Ronan is making gagging noises next to him. “Let’s go on the Tilt-A-Whirl. Maybe the spinning will make me  _ less  _ nauseous.” He suggests, purposely catty, and grins when Ronan  _ roars  _ with laughter. 

The Tilt-A-Whirl makes Ronan  _ scream,  _ laughing and whooping in the seat in front of Adam, silent and wide-eyed with his own exhilaration. 

They stumble off, afterwards, Ronan’s cheeks flushed and his little giggles so  _ joyful  _ it makes Adam feel intoxicated just to  _ look _ at him, all-consuming. Adam is useless all the fucking time, too in love with Ronan sometimes to even  _ breathe.  _

“Let’s go in here,” Ronan proposes casually, nodding at the House of Mirrors. Adam follows him inside, because he’s followed Ronan to hell and back by now. A mirrored funhouse is nothing, comparatively. 

The place is deserted of both carnivalgoers and workers; Ronan stays a few feet ahead at all times, examining himself in each mirror. The reflected Ronan’s are all thoughtful, all handsome, all carrying a giant stuffed flamingo. 

“Noah would’ve loved this.” Ronan says softly. Adam swallows around the sadness rising in his throat, nods. 

“He would’ve.” He agrees, and then Ronan is on him, kissing him deep with his mouth still tasting like cotton candy and Blue’s borrowed strawberry lip gloss. Adam shoves his hands up the back of Ronan’s shirt, greedily touching the lines of his tattoo, the dimples above his ass that he likes to  _ bite  _ when he’s got Ronan on his stomach and whining for it. 

They’re nineteen and  _ alive  _ and there’s a giant stuffed flamingo tangled in their legs and Adam can’t believe that they’re still so  _ needy  _ for it even after a whole  _ year,  _ acting like freshmen rounding third base for the first time,  _ every  _ time. It never gets old. It never gets boring.  _ God,  _ what if it was like this forever? Would it be? 

Ronan mumbles  _ AdamAdamAdam  _ into the kiss with the frenetic energy he reserves for fighting, racing, and fucking, a sharp change from his usual lethargic malice. 

Stroking the dimples above Ronan’s ass becomes grabbing Ronan’s ass and hauling him in close, close enough that they can grind up against each other, sharp friction through both of their jeans that’s no less sweet for its threat of chafing. 

“Ronan—“ Adam exclaims, overcome. He’s so  _ close.  _

“Open your fuckin eyes, Parrish,” Ronan demands in his good ear, and so Adam does, he  _ does  _ and there they are, Ronan’s wide shoulders and his sinuous hips and  _ Adam,  _ Adam’s hands on Ronan, Adam the one making Ronan’s knees tremble. Adam, dark-eyed and  _ triumphant,  _ over Ronan’s shoulder. 

Adam drags Ronan forward one more time and comes, smothering his groan into Ronan’s neck. Ronan follows, grinding against his thigh through it because he likes the edge that comes with overstimulation, just a little. Likes chasing the  _ almost-pain _ of it. 

Ronan’s phone buzzes insistently in his pocket a while later, when they’re still plastered to each other and grinning like fools, cum cooling in their underwear. 

“S’Gansey,” Ronan says absently, skimming the text. “Ferris wheel then home?” He summarizes, and Adam nods, presses a kiss just below Ronan’s ear, to where his skin is thinnest. Most vulnerable. Softest. 

“You missed the funnel cakes!” Gansey calls out to them as soon as they’re in sight, in line at the Ferris wheel. He sounds as if there is nothing else in the world more terrible, despite their extensive personal knowledge to the contrary, dramatic as ever. 

“We were busy  _ having sex, _ Dick!” Ronan shouts back, turning more than a few heads. Gansey goes red, all indignant and amused and  _ fond.  _ It’s ridiculous. 

The Ferris wheel’s carts only hold two people at a time. Blue volunteers quickly to wait on solid ground, letting Henry and Gansey lay all over each other and giggle like schoolgirls once they’re loaded in and strapped down for safety. 

The cart rocks when Ronan gets into it and he steadies Adam’s shaky ascension with absent ease and a hand on his bicep for support. 

The car goes up, up, up until they’re at the top, until there is the night sky around them and there is the carnival’s lights below and all Adam can look at is Ronan. 

Ronan is looking back. “Such a fucking sap,” he mutters, and leans back in for another kiss. 

**Author's Note:**

> follow me @ brophigenia.tumblr.com


End file.
